Chapter Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE
MAVEN
Blackthorn Manor is dark when we arrive, brooding and silent, its hulking silhouette barely discernible from the surrounding forest. Inside, the smoky scent of burnt mugwort and foxglove lingers heavily in the air.
Esme and Davina have withdrawn to their chambers, leaving only beeswax candles burning in the niches in the great room walls. They weave shadows that seem to move independently of their sources.
Q carries Bea upstairs to her bedroom as I trail behind. Once he settles her on the bed and leaves us, I wet a washcloth and wipe her face clean of the green paint. I remove her shoes and pull the blankets over her small body, tucking her in as she rolls onto her side, muttering in her sleep.
Luna the second or third jumps onto the bed and settles into a fluffy white ball near Bea’s feet, her keen gaze trained on the bedroom door.
Exhausted, I retire to my room, undress, and take a shower, letting the hot water pummel me, wishing it would wash away all traces of Ronan from my mind.
I’m not that lucky. By the time I dry off, change into pajamas, and crawl into bed, my heart feels as if a horde of hungry rats is gnawing on it.
This is why I never wanted to get close to a man again. This sick, agonizing ache right in the center of my chest. Seeing Ronan with that brunette did more than simply hurt me, however.
It proved without a doubt that no matter how much I tell myself he doesn’t mean anything to me, he’s carved his name onto my heart like no one else ever will.
Like it or not, I belong to him.
I pull my knees up to my chest, drag the blankets over my head, and am drifting off to sleep when Bea’s voice startles me back into consciousness.
“Mom?”
I flip the covers off and blink at her. Looking pale and frightened in the gleaming moonlight spilling through the windows, she stands beside my bed.
“What is it, honey? Are you okay?”
“Can I sleep with you tonight?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s the boys.”
Alarmed, I sit up and turn on the bedside lamp. “What boys?”
Her answer comes in a nervous whisper. “The little black-eyed boys in the woods. They’re just standing there, staring at me.”
Relieved there aren’t a bunch of schoolkids hanging desecrated plastic dolls in the shrubs, I scrub my hands over my face and sigh.
“Oh, honey. There are no boys in the woods. It’s just the moonlight playing tricks on you. Let’s get you back into bed.”
I rise, take her hand, and lead her back down the hall to my old bedroom. She climbs into bed and pulls the covers up to her chin. I kiss her forehead, draw the curtains closed, and turn to go.
“Will you check under the bed first?”
This isn’t like her. She’s normally not afraid of anything. I’ve seen her watch serial killer documentaries complete with gory crime scene photos and afterward, sleep like a baby.
Maybe it’s because of what happened earlier. Getting lost inside a hall of mirrors could terrify anyone.
“Sure.”
I kneel and peer into the shadows under the bed. The only thing there is a ball of cat fur.
When I rise and smile down at her, she’s frozen on the bed, her eyes huge.
“What is it?”
Looking past me, she whispers, “They’re behind you now.”
My heart in my throat, I whirl around. The room is empty.
When I turn back to Bea, she’s got the covers pulled all the way over her face. Her whole body is shaking.
“You’re sleeping with me tonight, honey. Let’s go.”
I’m not sure who moves faster, but we’re back down the hall, huddled together under the blankets in my bed before I can count to ten.
Even with the lamp burning and exhaustion weighing heavily on me, I can’t fall asleep until the black sky outside the windows lightens to pearl and dawn chases away all the shadows lurking in the deepest corners of the room.
In the morning, Bea remembers nothing about the boys she saw in the woods. She wakes up in bed beside me confused as to how she got there. When I tell her she was scared, she stares at me blankly.
“Of what?”
“Never mind. It was just a dream.”
She looks at me as if I made the whole thing up and retreats to her own bedroom with the cat following on her heels.
At breakfast, the aunties are all smiles.
“Good morning, love,” says Esme cheerfully, setting a mug of fragrant tea in front of me when I sit at the table. “Toast? Pancakes?”
“I’ll take aspirin instead.”
“You don’t feel well?”
“I was up late with Bea. She had a nightmare.”
“The poor dear. I can’t remember the last time that happened to me. I sleep like the dead. She must’ve eaten too much candy.”
I frown at her retreating figure as she moves to the cupboard to retrieve a plate. “You had a bad dream just last week.”
She turns to peer at me in obvious confusion.
“The snakes, remember? You had a nightmare that big black snakes were slithering all over the house. Twice you said you had that dream.”
Esme shares a surprised glance with Davina, then says gently, “No, love. I didn’t have any dream about snakes. I’m sure I would have remembered that.”
I insist, “Auntie D, you remember. We were all right here in the kitchen when she told us.”
She silently shakes her head.
Disturbed, I stare down into the murky depths of my tea and worry that there’s something seriously wrong with me. First, the nosebleeds. Then, the headaches. Now, I’m imagining entire conversations?
And what about Bea’s bad dream last night—the one she doesn’t remember having?
Was that my imagination, too?
I gingerly touch my forehead, wondering if a tumor is eating its merry way through my brain.
I tell myself it’s only stress, that it must be, but I can’t quite convince myself it’s true.
I’m off-kilter for the rest of the day, so I decide to get out of the house and get some fresh air.
I leave Bea doing her lessons with Q, grab a wool coat from the stand by the door, and head out into the foggy, overcast afternoon.
I walk with my hands shoved deep into the pockets, trying to clear my mind so I can make sense of things.
I’m so preoccupied that when I finally look up, I realize I’ve wandered deep into the woods.
The tall stone spire of a church peeks through the trees about a quarter mile in front of me. I think it’s the old Croft church. I must be on their property.
I stop and stare at the spire for a long moment, gathering myself and letting my racing pulse slow to a more normal pace. I must have been headed here all along, to the place where it all began when my mother died, without consciously deciding.
It’s as if I’m made of iron and the church is a magnet, irresistibly drawing me in.
I take a moment to steel my nerves, then trek on.
The only sound is the crunch of dry pine needles underfoot. It’s eerily quiet and still in this part of the forest, with none of the chatter of birds in the canopy so common in nature, no hooting owls or rustling branches or the happy burbling of a nearby stream.
The forest feels as if it’s holding its breath.
The old abandoned church sits in the middle of a clearing free of trees but choked with weeds and wild grasses.
Its limestone walls are chipped and crumbling in some places, in others they’re blanketed in thick green mounds of moss.
The stained-glass windows are dull and broken, and the steeple looks ready to collapse at any moment onto the pitched roof.
Dotted throughout the Gothic cemetery next to the church, elaborate headstones mark the places where the Croft family members are buried. The white marble vault topped with a weeping angel is where Ronan’s mother was laid to rest.
I only know that because there was a picture of it in the newspaper. Nobody was surprised when the Blackthorns weren’t invited to the funeral.
The wooden doors at the front of the church have long since been removed, replaced with a heavy rusted gate bolted to the stone. A thick silver chain is wrapped through the iron bars and locked with a padlock, and though everything else about the church is decayed, those are new and shiny.
I walk around the exterior until I find another entrance on the side. The rusted gate that guards it stands ajar, so I slip through.
The inside of the church is cold and dim. It’s empty except for a few dusty, overturned wooden pews near the altar and drifts of dead leaves on the floor. Marble pillars rise to immense stone arches in the vaulted ceiling.
A barnyard funk of animals hangs heavily in the air. It smells musky, like wet straw and rotting wood. Looking around, I wonder which Croft decided he’d had enough of God and left this place to ruin. It’s obviously been abandoned for generations.
Wandering deeper into the building, I discover elaborate gargoyles, angels, knights, and animals carved into the stone walls above the windows and doorways.
They’re beautiful and intricate, their design a testament to the skill of the craftsman.
A few feet in front of the altar, I stop looking at the walls, my attention drawn to the floor.
Inset into the stone, a large mosaic of black-and-white tiles depicts a wolf with a lamb in its jaws. Above the wolf and its captured prey floats a moon, full, black, and ominous.
It’s the Croft family crest. I’ve seen it many times before, but in this spooky setting, it seems a hundred times more menacing.
“Maven.”
Gasping, I jump and whirl around.
Ronan stands at the top of a set of underground stairs I hadn’t noticed. The steps are carved right out of the stone floor along the wall by the altar, descending into darkness a few feet in.
I press a hand over my thundering heart. “You scared me.”
“Nothing scares you. Even when it should.”
His voice is low and rough. His jaw is unshaven. He’s dressed in faded jeans, battered work boots, and an old plaid flannel shirt. They’re work clothes, common enough for other people, but on him, they seem wrong. It’s as if someone painted a pair of overalls on the David.
He demands, “What are you doing here?”